Effing the ineffable in the cricket world

Fantasy Cricket

June 22, 2008

Firstly, let me introduce myself. You may have heard of me through some of D.S.'s posts, I'm LeftyJ, the resident stat man at Outside the Line. I'm also a huge fan of fantasy sports (I've dominated D.S. in our NBA fantasy leagues for two years running and the fucker still owes me money), and it's been obvious to me for some time that cricket is in DIRE need of a proper fantasy league. I can't believe it hasn't happened yet, but don't worry, I'm on the case.

As a kind of fake conclusion to this year's IPL fantasy season, I decided to do a final wrap up/Big Board. I've ranked the players in order of their total value in a ten category format (runs, strike rate, batting average, fours, sixes, wickets, bowling average, economy rate, catches and run outs). It wasn't easy to do, but I think you'll find it's quite accurate (feel free to post some comments on where you feel I went wrong), and in the end we found some surprising results.

RANK

PLAYER

TYPE

STOCK

1

SR Watson (RR)

Bat/Bwl/All

Contributed hugely in all 10 categories. The only player to do so. ‘Nuff said.

2

SE Marsh (PXI)

Bat

Top performer in runs (616) and average (68.44), second in fours (59) and sixes (26). An absolute beast.

3

ST Jayasuriya (MI)

Bat/All

Bigtime boundary hitter led the league in sixes (31), and broke even with his bowling.

4

Sohail Tanvir (RR)

Bwl/All

Most wickets (22), best average (12.09) and second lowest economy rate (6.46). Clearly the most effective bowler in the tournament.

5

YK Pathan (RR)

Bat/All

Came out of nowhere, and finished in the top three for strike rate and sixes, and managed 8 wickets with his handy offspin.

Second leading run scorer and leading four hitter (68) just needs to embrace the six (he got a mere 8 of them) to become a complete fantasy batter.

8

SK Raina (CSK)

Bat

Leading catcher (10), with very solid batting numbers.

9

AC Gilchrist (DC)

Bat/WK

Wasn't as explosive as usual, but still a top-10 batter.

10

SK Warne (RR)

Bwl

Would love to see him bat higher up, but still scraped into the top ten with sublime bowling lines and six catches.

11

GC Smith (RR)

Bat

Thankfully didn't bowl, and his fours and average offset a poor strike rate.

12

RG Sharma (DC)

Bat

Faded late, but still contributed across the batting board, and bagged eight catches.

13

MF Maharoof (DD)

Bwl/All

Brilliant allround effort, would have been right up there if he had have been given more game time. Top-5 material for next year.

14

SC Ganguly (KKR)

Bat/All

Sourav kept his inner Kallis at bay and managed the league’s lowest economy rate, as well as a lot of runs and sixes.

15

MS Dhoni (CSK)

Bat/WK

Had a solid tournament with the bat, and got 6 catches.

16

DJ Bravo (MI)

Bwl/All

Multi-category player looked the part in limited time. Should break the top-10 next season.

17

SM Pollock (MI)

Bwl/All

Achieved a little in most categories, but excelled bigtime in economy rate (6.54).

18

PP Chawla (PXI)

Bwl

Struggled to keep the runs down, but was a genuine wicket-taker. Showed urgency with the bat, and held onto 6 catches.

19

IK Pathan (PXI)

Bwl/All

Reversed his previous form, and had a great tournament with the ball (15 wickets, econ rate 6.6), but not with the bat (strike rate 112, only 9 fours).

20

M Gony (CSK)

Bwl

Solid bowling is hard to come by in this format, and Gony bowled tight and and picked up wickets all tournament.

It turns out that the quality allrounder is the key to your fantasy team. Five of the top six players are allrounders. However, the most successful allrounders are the ones who could be considered specialists in both fields. It is always a risky pick drafting a bowling alrounder or (especially) a batting allrounder. Sehwag's omission from the top twenty is a perfect example of that. So the Morkel's and Watson's of the world should go very early in next years drafts. If Flintoff can ever get in a team, then watch out.

Five players from the top eleven played for the eventual winners, the Rajasthan Royals. The Bangalore Royal Challengers didn't get a single player in the top 20 (even Deccan Chargers managed two players), partly because they played so poorly, but partly because their players aren't fantasy-ready. And if this Big Board proves anything, it's that there is a correlation between fantasy performance and winning Twenty20 games.

One other thing to note is that batters (5 categories) are more useful than bowlers (3 categories). We wanted to even it up and include maidens (like we did for the World Cup 2007 fantasy system) , but there simply aren't enough of them in Twenty20 to make it a viable stat. Catches and run outs can prove the difference in the end, as SK Raina showed.

Here at Outside The Line, we plan on having a fully functional roto style fantasy league for next years IPL. We know we have some kinks to iron out in our system, but we assure you, it'll be much better than anything cricinfo, or anyone else has to offer. And I will personally provide the big boards, and fantasy relevant news and updates to help you draft, and win your leagues.

May 16, 2008

[NOTE: In his book "Letters to a Young
Contrarian", Christopher Hitchens recounts a strategy used by dissidents
in Eastern Europe, like Vaclav Havel, to get through life behind the Iron
Curtain. It was dubbed the 'As If' strategy. Havel “realised that ‘resistance’ in its original insurgent and
militant sense was impossible in the Central Europe of the day. He therefore
proposed living ‘as if’ he were a citizen of a free society, ‘as if’ lying and
cowardice were not mandatory patriotic duties, ‘as if’ his government had
actually signed the various treaties and agreements that enshrine universal
human rights.”

Here at Outside the Line, we embrace that
sentiment, and we wish to somehow emulate it. Luckily, we live in a free society, with no StB goons in the
adjacent house waiting to break our bones, so our hypothetical ‘as if’ strategy
shall be reserved for more trivial matters. Namely, ranking IPL players.

One of the criminally overlooked aspects about
the IPL so far has been its fantasy potential. Now that we have an actual functional league, with a uniform number of games, and a colelction of international talent in one place, there is no excuse not to have a proper fantasy infrastructure. Entire armies of sports geeks and
office procrastinators have been denied already, and it's just not right! We can’t keep that
going any longer.

And, by the way, we don’t mean the usual worthless fantasy games on offer at cricinfo and elsewhere on the net, where everyone gets to pick from the entire pool of players, and then points are given out virtually arbitrarily. We mean proper rotisserie-style fantasy leagues, with
drafts, trading, free agents, and players competing only against others chosen to be in their league.

As far as we're aware, no such thing exists out there for cricket. Therefore, until it does (which if we get our shit together, should be by the start of next year's IPL), we will just live 'as if' fantasy cricket exists. So here it is, the inaugural Outside the
Line Big Board, assessing the fantasy stock of the leading IPL players. We chose a typical set of roto rules and some predictable categories, just to give everyone an idea of what we're talking about.

I’d
also like to use the opportunity to introduce my good friend Joey – Lefty J to
the cricket world – who compiled this Big Board and shall be contributing
regularly to Outside the Line, mainly with some nifty statistical alchemy and
other crazy attempts at finding objective gold. Lefty J was my mentor in all
things cricket-related, so any odd prejudices I still hold are probably
attributable to him in some way. The man is probably the shrewdest and most
annoyingly rational being I’ve ever know, and he doesn’t suffer fools – or
time-wasters – gladly. Cross him at your peril. But give him some love.